Archive for month: August, 2015

My name is Tenaya Hurst and I am a Rogue Maker. I teach sewing, soldering, and programming electronics all around the world. It is my honor to help support the community of Boulder Colorado with this year’s STEAMfest. I teach workshops in schools, libraries, scout troops, conferences, birthday parties, and more. I have seen first hand the importance of STEAM and the maker movement to education. When a child has a traditional learning experience with books, essays, presentations, and tests, it’s important to also incorporate some hands on learning. STEAM is a way to constantly keep these important subjects present in the minds of the students. But why?

Team work. When we make, we learn how to work in a group. Make your ideas heard, listen to your teammates, and collaborate to the best creation. These are essential skills I missed in school. Whenever a group project was announced, I dreaded it because I was conditioned that only my individual merits mattered. Now that I’m in the maker movement and see the intelligent advancement of kids half my age, I see how those team efforts really pay off in creating more prepared people for our society. Even if a child becomes a lawyer or a doctor instead of an engineer or designer, that’s okay by me! The experience of creating an Arduino robot, sewing an electronic circuit, prototyping with paper circuits, or mastering the art of soldering – makes you a better person! You learn that failure is just part of the process instead of a devastating end to your creativity.

My favorite activity to teach is wearable technology, sewing with conductive thread. I find it is the best activity to combine everything in STEAM.

Science – we’re learning about electricity!

Technology – we’re learning that Lilypad Arduino and other hardware can be sewn into clothing and circuits can be created to help our daily lives and join the Internet of Things movement.

Engineering – there’s a lot of planning to make sure your circuit functions reliably and testing to try to find failures and solve them.

Art – the overall design and intention of a wearable tech project is the ultimate artistic expression because we’re going to wear it!

And Math…. I definitely wanted to incorporate math, but wasn’t sure how…and then I started using different colors of LEDs and discovered forward voltage! My students examine the data sheets of the Lilypad LEDs and compare the values. We can then calculate how much voltage (how many batteries) we’ll need to illuminate our desired combination of LEDs. I could make it easy on my students and always give out white LEDs, but it’s so much more fun to allow a struggle and give them an electrical/math equation as the solution to find…the solution!

My grandpa grew up in the great depression. From an early age, he was fascinated with the way the world worked and emerging technologies. He found wires in the streets of Chicago (from the first installation of electricity), took any small jobs he could around he neighborhood to learn skills, installed a doorbell at his house, accepted hand-me down tools, started a photography lab in his basement and even accepted a broken printing press to fix and use. He didn’t let his economic status hold him back from making. With the materials, kits, microcontrollers, and resources available today at relatively low cost, he would be proud that America is going back to a state of empowerment, WE can make things ourselves; we have value in our individual and collective innovation. My grandpa eventually achieved a degree in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern and was awarded both Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. He is my hero and I hope he’ d be proud of me, bringing electrical engineering to students in a new and emerging way with wearable technology.

Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest is honored to present Cathy Olkin, of the Southwest Research Institute, at 4pm on Sunday, September 6th.

Cathy is a planetary scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO. Her main topic of research is the outer solar system, specifically planetary atmospheres and surfaces.

Cathy enjoys chasing the shadows of stars to learn about planetary atmospheres through ‘stellar occultation’ observations. These events have taken Cathy to many exotic locations from Hawaii, to the Marshall Islands, Australia, South Africa and Switzerland.

She also enjoys studying the ices in the outer solar system. On Pluto, Triton and other bodies, molecules that are usually in gaseous state on Earth are solid at the cold temperatures of the outer solar system. Using infrared spectroscopy, spreading infrared light into its separate wavelengths, we can learn about these ices including methane ice, nitrogen ice, carbon monoxide ice and ethane ice.

Cathy didn’t always know that she wanted to be a planetary scientist. As a child, she was interested in many different subjects including how things worked. She liked to take household items (like the phone) apart.

Cathy attended MIT where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace and Aeronautical engineering in 1988. She then proceeded to Stanford to earn a Masters degree in the same field. After that, Cathy took a job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where she worked in the Navigation section on the Cassini mission (well before it launched).

Motivated by the exciting science of the Cassini mission, Cathy decided to go back to MIT to study planetary science. She obtained her PhD at MIT in 1996 based largely on airborne astronomical observations used to study the atmosphere of Neptune’s largest moon, Triton.

From there, she worked at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona investigating the rings of Saturn and using data from the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the mass ratio of Charon (Pluto’s largest moon) to Pluto.

Cathy now works at Southwest Research Institute where she is currently the Deputy Project Scientist for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Working on New Horizons is the perfect job for her, combining her background in engineering and her scientific interests. The spacecraft traveled more than 9 years and 3 billion miles to reach the Pluto system. This summer, New Horizons spacecraft flew through the Pluto system taking the first ever high-resolution images of Pluto and its surface. The data from the encounter with the Pluto system is continuing to be returned to the ground, and we can already see that this information has transformed our understanding of the Pluto system.

Meet Cooper with Outchasers! We’re so unbelievably excited to have the opportunity to play the Outchasers card game at Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest!

My name is Cooper Heinrichs. I’m currently a computer science student at CSU. I’m working on starting my own game development studio with our first game Outchasers, where players get to battle each other with giant robots.

What do you make?

I make games, specifically strategy card games right now.

How did you get started making and why?

Game development has been a passion of mine for my whole life. I kept applying for jobs and getting denied. I got tired of waiting for someone to let me do it, and decided to just do it! After I had made up my mind,

I found a good friend to work with and the rest has been nothing but hard work and a dream coming true.

What part of STEAM Fest are you most excited for?

I’m most excited to show off what I’ve made, and see all of the amazing things other makers have brought.

What will you be demo’ing, hacking, making, playing with at your STEAM Fest booth?

I’m going to be demoing my card game Outchasers at my STEAM Fest booth. I’m going to give people the opportunity to get into a giant robot and beat their friends up, metaphorically at least!

What’s the most amazing, unusual (craziest) thing anyone has ever done with or told you about what you make?

I really love to see people get into a game design mindset when they play my game. I’ve been working on it for two years, and everyone is always willing to give advice, but I enjoy it most when they come up with a fun way to play that is outside of our rules. I feel like I’ve made a playground and now people just get to enjoy it however they choose.

What is your advice to creators looking to do what you do or make what you make?

My advice to creators who are looking to get going is just that – get going! Every little step you can make will get you closer to your dream, but you have to take one step at a time and keep pushing. That leads me to my favorite lyric by Hey Rosetta – “It’s just a dream until you see it happening.”

What is your favorite part about the maker movement?

My favorite part of the movement is the empowerment. Makers don’t sit back and wait for someone to solve their problems, they get innovative and make their own solution.

Where do you see your making going in the next 3 to 5 years?

I see myself moving into a digital space so that I can reach a broader market and shed some of the limitations that physicals goods force upon us. I know our game will be even more fun once it’s created in a digital space.

What do you wish you could make but don’t know how to (yet)?

I always admire makers who can work with electronics. I haven’t had time to learn, but I am always so impressed by what those guys and gals can make!

Pinshape is offering a 20% discount on 3D models to MakerBoulder fans! Just use the code “boulder”. Oh and hey, if you sign up for a new account or already have an account, Pinshape started a deals page for their Community that gives 5-25% off of 3D Printing Accessories – https://pinshape.com/deals

What does Pinshape do?

Pinshape is the next generation 3D Printing Community & Marketplace for brands, designers and makers. Our community helps make 3D printing easier and more fun. We help brands and amazing 3D designers bring their 3D printable digital products to customers worldwide while respecting their Intellectual Property.

Who is your target customer?

Pinshape is a community for anyone who makes, designs, or prints 3D models. We work with global Brands and 3D designers to bring really innovative products to market. Most of our community members own 3D printers and use Pinshape to explore high quality models to print. We’re focused on Brands, companies, 3D Designers, 3D Engineers / Innovators, Makers, Hobbyists, & Teachers!

What is your most inspiring customer feedback?

“We’re working crazy hard to create the best experience possible for our community members to explore high quality models. We’re growing 150% month over month for the past 6 months! That’s the best customer feedback we can ever ask for. We have a lot of community on Pinshape and people really appreciate how much everyone engages with each other to help make 3D Design & Printing, easier and fun.” – Lucas Matheson CEO at Pinshape

Some of the most inspiring customer feedback has come on 3DPI where customers backed our platform in an article comparing us to Thingiverse. Read & Comment Here.

Here is what our community is saying about Pinshape.com:

“This site has been very valuable to me and I am sure others will think so too. There are some great creative ideas available as well.”
“It’s an amazing way to spread out your work and find extremely useful parts”
“Because the community is awesome”
“A more user friendly site, with more usable search functions”
“Pinshape seems to have a tighter relationship with customers and designers”
“Reputable, quality models, good platform to launch from”
“for more serious 3D printing individuals, the value of observing settings and results enables the tuning and diagnostics of equipment in a way that isn’t really being engaged thoughtfully or rigorously by others“
“3D Designers use Pinshape because of the transparency within the community and know that their designs are safe with them. Other websites have frustrated 3D Designers because of Intellectual Property disputes where Designers have lost the rights to their Designs.”

Where do you see your company in five years?

One of the most exciting things about 3D printing is the ability for people to customize and personalize digital products. The way consumers purchase products is about to change significantly. The next generation of consumers will explore models online, easily customize them, click a few buttons and have a unique product(s) 3D printed and shipped the same day.

Pinshape is building a new way for brands and customers to create products and innovate. Our strategy is to focus on bringing the best quality products to market and leveraging technology to make the experience as seamless as possible.

Why is Pinshape important and what will your customers get out of being members?

-The Best 3D Designers in the world use Pinshape
-Friendly Community with Expert Knowledge and Wisdom
-Thousands of 3D Designs to Browse, Print, and Share
-A ton of information and free resources to help with 3D Designing, 3D Printing, and everything in between.
-Free membership gets access to deals on 3D Printers, Filament, and Accessories; savings up to 25%
-Streaming Technology to keep your Designs and Intellectual Property Safe
-Contests are run frequently that encourage the community of designers, and engineers to create, and share their work with aim of winning awesome prizes like 3D Printers, Software, Filament, and gift cards.

What else do you want our readers to know?

We’re at the very beginning of a really exciting time! 3D printing is here and it’s growing everyday. If you’re passionate about design, or just love printing, you’re invited to join Pinshape; learn from the most experienced makers, hackers and designers and contribute to our ever-growing community.

We have a community-first approach so we value every insight that is provided and plan to keep making our 3D Printing Community and Marketplace a destination that appreciates Design, Creativity, and Innovation.

We feature a Designer on a monthly basis based on their work and involvement within the community. At Pinshape, we want to help Designers get their designs noticed as well as printed for free or sold to buyers who want to pay for specific designs. We are actively helping Designers become Entrepreneurs by provided them with the opportunity to put their product designs in front of a qualified audience as well as to educate them on best practices through educational resources and newsletters to make 3D printing as streamlined as possible

How did your company get started and why?

Everyone at Pinshape has a passion for 3D printing and the future of the industry. We love seeing new products being designed and printed every day. For us, quality is King, and we want to build a community and platform that brings the best quality 3d content to market. We want to work with the most innovative companies, 3d designers, hackers, makers, hobbyists and teachers to create truly unique and inspiring digital products.

We got started because we saw a need to bring really amazing 3D content to the market. Without great content, 3D printing isn’t exciting! We went through the 500 Startups accelerator program in Silicon Valley, raised our initial seed round, hired an amazing team, and built what Pinshape is today.

What is your best advice to a young entrepreneur who wants to start a company like you?

My best advice is to ask for advice from really smart, really experienced, and really passionate entrepreneurs. Unlike a lot of industries, the startup community is full of ultra generous founders who will take time and help. If you want to get someone, find someone who’s been there before and ask them specific questions that will allow you to take actionable steps to building your company.

Dr. Grandin will be joining us for Rocky Mountain STEAM Fest on Sunday morning and will be speaking at 2 p.m.

Temple Grandin is a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and she has been a pioneer in improving the handling and welfare of farm animals.

She was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Temple’s achievements are remarkable because she was an autistic child. At age two she had no speech and all the signs of severe autism. Fortunately, her mother defied the advice of the doctors and kept her out of an institution. Many hours of speech therapy, and intensive teaching enabled Temple to learn speech. As a teenager, life was hard with constant teasing. Mentoring by her high school science teacher and her aunt on her ranch in Arizona motivated Temple to study and pursue a career as a scientist and livestock equipment designer.

Temple Grandin with a cow

Dr. Temple Grandin obtained her B.A. at Franklin Pierce College in 1970. In 1974 she was employed as Livestock Editor for the Arizona Farmer Ranchman and also worked for Corral Industries on equipment design. In 1975 she earned her M.S. in Animal Science at Arizona State University for her work on the behavior of cattle in different squeeze chutes. Dr. Grandin was awarded her Ph.D in Animal Science from the University of Illinois in 1989 and is currently a Professor at Colorado State University.

I have done extensive work on the design of handling facilities. Half the cattle in the U.S. and Canada are handled in equipment I have designed for meat plants. Other professional activities include developing animal welfare guidelines for the meat industry and consulting with companies on animal welfare.

Following her Ph.D. research on the effect of environmental enrichment on the behavior of pigs, she has published several hundred industry publications, book chapters and technical papers on animal handling plus 63 refereed journal articles in addition to ten books. She currently is a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University where she continues her research while teaching courses on livestock handling and facility design. Her book, Animals in Translation was a New York Times best seller and her book Livestock Handling an Transport, now has a fourth edition which was published in 2014. Other popular books authored by Dr. Grandin are Thinkingin Pictures, Emergence Labeled Autistic, Animals Make us Human, Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach, The Way I See It, and The Autistic Brain. She also has a popular TED Talk.

Dr. Grandin has received numerous awards including the Meritorious Achievement Award from the Livestock Conservation Institute, named a Distinguished Alumni at Franklin Pierce College and received an honorary doctorate from McGill University, University of Illinois, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon University, and Duke University. She has also won prestigious industry awards including the Richard L. Knowlton Award from Meat Marketing and Technology Magazine and the Industry Advancement Award from the American Meat Institute and the Beef Top 40 industry leaders and the Lifetime Achievement Award from The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. In 2015 she was given the Distinguished Service Award by the American Farm Bureau Federation. Her work has also been recognized by humane groups and she received several awards. HBO has recently premiered a movie about Temple’s early life and career with the livestock industry. The movie received seven Emmy awards, a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award. In 2011, Temple was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

Dr. Grandin is a past member of the board of directors of the Autism Society of America. She lectures to parents and teachers throughout the U.S. on her experiences with autism. Articles and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, People, Time, National Public Radio, 20/20, The View, and the BBC. She was also honored in Time Magazines 2010 “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” In 2012, Temple was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame. Dr. Grandin now resides in Fort Collins, Colorado.

IMPACT STATEMENT OF DR. GRANDIN’S WORK

Dr. Temple Grandin has had a major impact on the meat and livestock industries worldwide. List below are six specific examples that document this influence.

Design of Animal Handling Facilities – Dr. Grandin is one of the world’s leaders in the design of livestock handling facilities. She has designed livestock facilities throughout the United States and in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. In North America, almost half of all cattle processing facilities include a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Her curved chute systems are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many producers to reduce stress during handling. Temple has also designed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants. This system is being used by many large corporations to improve animal care.

Industry Consulting – Dr. Grandin has consulted with many different industry organizations each year for the past ten years. These efforts represent the majority of her time as she has a part-time appointment at Colorado State University but a thriving business as a consultant. The majority of her work is involved with large feedlots and commercial meat packers. She has worked with Cargill, Tyson, JBS Swift, Smithfield, Seaboard, Cactus Feeders, and many other large companies. Her company also does design work for many ranches. She was also involved with several major packing companies. Her consulting has led to work with companies such as Wendy’s International, Burger King, Whole Foods, Chipotle, and McDonald’s Corporation, where she has trained auditors regarding animal care at processing plants. She also has consulted with organic and natural livestock producers on animal care standards The animal handling guidelines that she wrote for the American Meat Institute are being used by many large meat buying customers to objectively audit animal handling and stunning.

Research – Dr. Grandin maintains a limited number of graduate students and conducts research that assists in developing systems for animal handling and, in particular, with the reduction of stress and losses at the packing plant. She has published her research in the areas of cattle temperament, environmental enrichment of pigs, livestock behavior during handling, reducing dark cutters and bruises, bull fertility housing dairy cattle and effective stunning methods for cattle and hogs.

Media Exposure – Dr. Grandin has provided worldwide media exposure for the livestock industry and, in particular, with issues relating to animal care. She has appeared on television shows such as 20/20, 48 hours, CNN Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, and has been featured in People Magazine, the New York Times, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and Time magazine. Interviews with Dr. Grandin have been broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR) and she has been taped for similar shows in Europe. She was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential people. HBO has made a movie about her life starring Claire Danes.

Outreach – Dr. Grandin maintains an appointment with Cooperative Extension at Colorado State where she has been active in making presentations to Colorado ranchers and farmers as well as those interested in the packing industry. She is sought after to discuss issues of quality assurance. Privately, she has developed her own website (www.grandin.com) which has been expanded to include information on livestock handling in addition to information relative to the design of handling systems. A section on bison handling and one in Spanish have been popular. Over 2,000 people visit the website every month and approximately 1,000 download significant amounts of information. As many as 1,431 files were downloaded daily and over 42,000 have been downloaded in a single month. The website has been accessed by people from over 50 countries worldwide. She also did a TED talk in 2010 entitled, “The World Needs All Kinds of Minds.”

International Activities – It is clear from the wide variety of information accessed via the website, presentations made in international settings and interest in livestock handling systems developed by Dr. Grandin that her work has reached an international audience. She typically travels to make presentations internationally 3-5 times annually.

Meet Denny, Isaac and Mitzi Newland, The startup team for HyPars LLC. We are two dads, a mom, a husband and wife team, a semi-retired nuclear engineer, a very retired customer service manager, a tech support specialist and soon, professional toymakers!

What do you make?

HyPars, the cool name for hyperbolic paraboloids. They are geometry based building toys that we hope the world will soon come to love.

How did you get started making and why?

Denny invented the toys and needed a lot of help getting them to market. Mitzi got involved with the technical writing and Isaac pitched in. We’ve just been taking on more roles as they come up. Turns out there are a lot of hats to wear.

What’s the most amazing, unusual (craziest) thing anyone has ever done with or told you about what you make?

When Denny started, he thought he had put together every type of creation possible with HyPars. As soon as we showed them to new people, the ideas began flooding in! It’s great to see that everyone has amazing ideas and we’re happy to share in them. Mitzi’s favorite so far is the Helical Coil that a future geneticist made. Love it!

What is your advice to creators looking to do what you do or make what you make?

Perseverance is required

What is your favorite part about the maker movement?

Seeing the ideas that people have come to life firsthand!

Where do you see your making going in the next 3 to 5 years?

Hopefully, we will be creating our toys in our brand new building in Longmont, Colorado. We’ve secured land just east of Sandstone Ranch and should be breaking ground on the building within the next year!

What do you wish you could make but don’t know how to (yet)?

Hyperbolic paraboloids do not always lend themselves to creating the exact shapes you want. We still haven’t found a good way to make a cube shaped box, but we’re working on it.